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I May Have Found My Next Contest

So I should be working through my Design & The Marketplace module, but what can I say, the lovely folk at Elastic Creative are a bad influence.

If you didn’t see the awesome video response they sent to my initial interview you can watch it here. I’ve been looking up more of their suggestions for impressive applications of motion work. One that’s caught my eye is the Animation Sequence Project. The idea is simple. You have to take a 250px x 250px block and tell a story with it in 10 seconds, before it becomes just a block again. The best entries get compiled into one continuous sequence.

Courtesy of Animation Sequence Project

It should look incredible upon completion. The nature of the project allows for a motion designer or animator from any background to participate, and it utilises the increasingly social nature motion design as a whole. The project isn’t for profit in any way as far as I can see but it explores a new application of motion work which could one day be turned into something more viable.

Crowdsourcing for motion work in this way reminds me of E4’s Estings competition immediately, but the manner in which this will come together as a singular, seamless entity is far more enticing, at least from an aesthetic perspective.

It’s also an interesting look into the collaborative nature of animation. For the whole to be produced a team of dozens of animators and motion artists. However each individual 10-second piece may be produced by a single artist. This is an interesting window into how the nature of motion design is changing. Prior to the advent of desktop animation it would take a whole team of animators countless slow, painstaking hours to produce even a 10-second sting. Now it’s something achievable by single artists. Motion graphics is now something that can realistically be performed on a freelance basis, and most Scottish studios run on partnerships and small teams of under ten employees to produce their work.

This is another use of motion graphics that makes use of how connected we’ve become. When I say that I don’t just mean motion designers, the entire world of design is shifting due to this communication change. The entries are all hosted on Vimeo, a site I should be covering quite extensively throughout my writing. Vimeo is very different from YouTube. YouTube offers video to the average Joe. Vimeo makes the average Joe something more. Aimed at professional animators, filmmakers and motion artists it’s contains a wealth of inspiration for anybody interested in taking motion and film work seriously. Which is a sign there is a great change underway. It’s something I’ll be covering in a later blog, like I say in every blog post.

Courtesy of Animation Sequence Project

I’m tempted to enter the contest, though it’s clearly aimed at professionals. The entries are frankly all fantastic, so it’s more immediately intimidating that the Estings contest. Oh well. As the Animation Sequence Project say it really is cool to be square.